Supplement to the " Tropical Agrieulturist," [March 2, 190S. 
vators, who have passed the middle vernacnlar aud 
normal school exnmiiiation.s, to come for special 
agricultural training to a central institution and 
then go back to tli.^r re-ptctive vilLiges. 
lu ilie Cii^e of the lure C'llombo School of Agri- 
culture t' e prospect of employment under Goveni- 
ment — such iis is held out to students of ihe 
TechiJCal C'sllege — \vai rtb>'ent, nor wore such 
sch'd^irship.-' Mv&iliible as Mr, Mukerji suggests 
and are now given to the students being i rained as 
English reacher^: for the benefit of private schools. 
We are, however, doing the next best thing, 
now that we have uo School of Agriculture, and 
that is, carrying the agricultural propsi- 
g -nda into the heart of the country aud working 
through the best available medium, namely, the 
village school boy. 
To those who say there is no encouragement for 
the people to grow fruits aud other edible products, 
on the ground that such cultivation has beeu 
tried by planters without success, we would 
quote Mr. Mukerji to the effect that it will not 
pay the "gentleman," not only because his stand- 
ard of living is a bar to such success, but also for 
another reason — " It is by dint of hard labour 
and frugality that the Indian (and we may add 
Ceylon) cultivator makes agriculture pay. If a 
gentleman were to employ labourers and go in 
for ordinary farming, he will find these labourers 
(so industrious when working fo* themselves) 
sleeping over his work aud accotriplishing very 
litcle whea pretending to do work actually in liis 
presence." 
This is undoubtedly the true explanation of why 
Paddy cultivation can not be made to pay tiie 
" Gentleman Farmer" at the present market price 
of grain, and the cultivation of oranges and 
lemons will only pay the native grower. 
SILKWORMS AND SILK. 
The following is the text of the Government 
Entomologist'o Nature Study lesson on Silkworms, 
issued in connection v.'ith the attempts that are 
being made to introduce sericulture as a village 
industry ; — 
You probably ail know what silk is. You must 
have seen pieces of silk cloth. But I wonder if 
you know where the silk comes from, and how 
it is made? Silk is produced by a particular kind 
of caterpillar that feeds upon mulberry leaves, I 
will try to describe to you how the caterpillar 
lives and makes tlie silk, and how the silk is 
afterwards spun to be woven into cloth. Later 
on 1 will send you some eggs of the silkworm, so 
that you can rear them up aud watch them at 
work. 
We will suppose that you have some of these 
eggs. They are small round gray little things, 
fiatteued on the top, nnd about the size of the 
head of a pill. Tlit;y look very like the seeds of 
S ime plant. You must k-ep them in a cardboard 
box and lor^k at them carefully every morning, 
S)ine day — sooner or Liter — you will lind a 
number of tiny dark brown caterpillars wandering 
about the box ; and a corresponding number of 
the eggs will be empty, each having a small round 
hole at one side, through which the little grub 
hns made its escape. They will be hungry ; so 
you must run away at nnce and bring in s )me 
mulberry leaver. Ciioose tlie ymng and tender 
le ives from the ends of the branches, as the baby 
caterpillars cannot bite through the older leaves. 
You should lay the leaves on a paper tray, aud 
v/ith a small feather you cm pick up the little 
caterpillars and place t.hem ]i their food. They 
will stay there quite happily as long as the leaves 
remain fresh, and will gnaw little holes all over 
them. 
You must be careful to keep the tray hi soma 
place where the ants cannot get at the silkworms. 
You might put it on a table the legs of which are 
standing in pots of water. The worms will waat 
fresh leaves erery morning aud every eveniiig, 
and perhaps in the middle of the day too. If you 
do not give them enough fresh food, they will 
become restless and wander away in search of a 
meal. When you put the fresh leaves in the 
tray, lay them gently on the top of the old ones. 
You need not touch the little caterpillars ; they 
will walk on to the new leaves by themselves. 
Later on, yon can take away the old leaves. 
You will have noticed that when they first 
came out of th« egg the little caterpillars were of a 
dark colour and had a rough hairy .skin. As they 
begin to grow, they become paler in colour, and 
the skin loses most of its wrinkles, But a time 
comes when the skin, which can stretch only to a 
certain extent, becomes unpleasantly tight. Tiie 
.silkworm has outgrown its fir-t coat, and must 
change it for a larger one. How do you think 
that it manages this ? Well, when the skin gets 
too tight, it suddenly splits along the back, at a 
point just behind the head, and the caterpillar 
walks out of its old skin, with a new and larger 
coat already on its b;ick. Not only has it changed 
its outside skin, but has at the same time changed 
the lining of all its intenuil parts, — its stomach 
and its breathing tubes. The gro wing caterpillar 
provides itself wish a new coat, in this manner, 
four times during its life. For a short time 
before each change, it becomes sluggish and stops 
feeding. It should not be disturbed at such 
times. 
When full grown, the caterpillar measures from 
2| to 3 inches in length, and is as thick as a rather 
stout pencil, it is of a grayish wiiite colour, 
sometimes with a few blackish markings on the 
back. You will notice that the part immediately 
behind the head is considerably thicker and more 
wrinkled than the rest of the body. This is the 
part that carries tlie three pairs of true legs, 
which are thin, horny and pointed. Further back, 
you will see five pairs of stouter fleshy legs called 
the clusper.s. They use these clasping legs for 
holding on to the branches of the tree, while the 
.■^mall pointed legs in front are used more like 
h:i;ids. Just above the end of the body is a short 
fle.-^hy tail or horn. If you look carefully, you 
will see that the body is divided up into joints. 
There are thirteen of ihesi^ counrJng liie head as 
the first joint, Look still more closely on the 
sides of the body, and you will find, on each side, 
